The Phantom Blooper (32 page)

On the wall is a framed, knitted scene of Marines on Iwo Jima raising a Christian cross.

My books are all here, hundreds of books. Paperback books on apple crate shelves. But books can't help me now. I miss Hoa Binh and the rice fields. I miss being with people who have something to lose. All Americans have to lose are their American Dreams. Land stopped being worth fighting for when they turned it into real estate.

Standing in my childhood room I feel homesick. I feel like I'm in a motel.

For one moment, I am back in the triple-canopy jungle, surrounded by shadows that are the Viet Cong. And I'm reaching down in the torchlight to pull on the tooth of a napalmed tiger.

In one corner of the room is a wooden crate shipped from Da Nang. The crate has been opened. Inside, my loyal brothers at Khe Sanh have carefully packed my gear, including--duly tagged as a war trophy--my Tokarev pistol, the most highly prized souvenir in Viet Nam.

I snap a loaded clip into the Tokarev and drop it into my Stetson.

It feels so good to have a friend again.

At the supper table, we pray before we eat.

At supper I meet my stepfather, Obrey Beasley. He's as thin as a rail and his head is as bald as a baby's butt. He is wearing faded blue bib overalls and no shirt. His arms are skinny, pale, and black with hair. He's got varicose veins in his nose and smiles too much and doesn't mean a damned word he says. He says, "I wish I could kill me some of them Communists!"

Obrey spits Bull Durham chewing tobacco onto the floor and says, "I read the letters you wrote to Pless from the war, boy. I think it was real smart of you to get that job that let you sneak out of the fighting, that writing job. That was slick. Got out of the Big War myself. Claimed as I done my back. None of them Army doctors could show as how I weren't really laid up!" Obrey laughs, then returns his attention to the television set, which is new and in color, and has been moved into the dining room while we eat. "Was a assistant file clerk at TVA," he says. "My back problems paid off again. Got me a medical pension!"

For supper there's fried chicken, hot, golden brown, and sticky. There's a steaming bowl of green beans, flaky homemade biscuits too hot to hold, thick gravy, boiled potatoes, roasting ears of yellow corn, hominy grits, black-eyed peas, and cornbread. The rich smells from the food are both strange and familiar.

I peck at the food on my plate.

Old Ma nudges me, winks, says, "Your eyes always was bigger than your stomach."

My mother says, "I wish you'd wear your Army uniform to church come Sunday. They all been praying for you."

I say, "Ma, I just got home. And I'm not in the Army. I'm a Marine."

Old Ma says, "Boy, how come you didn't write us more letters?"

I say, "I been busy, Old Ma. Besides, I didn't know you could read."

Old Ma laughs. "Ain't nobody that busy." She kicks me under the table. "Go on and eat. You look like something the cat dragged in."

My mother calls to Sissie on the back porch, "Sissie! You wash up, now. Come on to the table. Your brother's home."

"Okay," Sissie calls back. "I'm coming." And then she mumbles, "I didn't ask to be the last one born. . . ."

Ma says, "I guess you must of heard about Vanessa, your little girlfriend."

I say, "No. Is she okay?"

Ma hesitates. "She's married, James. She's pregnant. When they said you was missing she married one of the Hester boys. She come by Tuesday a week. Said she was real sorry. Said she wanted to tell you her own self, but she's scared."

I say, "Of what? Of me? Why?"

Ma purses her lips. "We got a letter . . . from the Army. . . . "

I say, "What letter? What did it say?"

Ma says, "I don't know. I got it put up somewhere. Or maybe I throwed it out. It said we was to be real careful around you for a while, that you were, well, that your mind wasn't right."

I say, "Those fucking pogue liters . . ."

My mother is stunned. "James! Don't you dare use that trashy language in my house!"

Before I can reply, Sissie comes in. She's wearing my Silver Star on her torn white T-shirt.

"Sissie, " says Ma, "don't you be messing in James' things."

Sissie struts around the table. "I found this pretty blue box in the trash pile. This shiny brooch was in it." Sissie hugs me. "Can I have it, James? Please? Pretty please with sugar on it?" It's the Silver Star they gave me in Japan.

I say, "It's yours, Stringbean."

She says, "To keep?"

I say, "To keep."

Sissie kisses me on the cheek the way Song used to. "You're the best brother I ever had." She grins. "Of course, you're also the
only
brother I've ever had." She sits down at the table and admires her shiny brooch.

"Pass the potatoes, please," says Old Ma.

Obrey grunts, burps, finally passes down a bowl of boiled potatoes that look like albino hand grenades. Old Ma sets the bowl down in front of Sissie. "Eat, girl. You got all day for playing with James' hero medal."

Obrey says, grinning in a friendly way, "Even a blind hog can root up an acorn every once in a while."

"Look, James," says Old Ma, nudging me. I look at the television. It's a news special about our boys in Viet Nam entitled,
The Viet Nam Violence Freaks
, jerky mini-cam movements and disconnected images of violence, a dinnertime feeding for civilians weaned on recreational gore.

Obrey says, "Cecilia, switch the channel."

On television are some glowing Army grunts in overly green jungle utilities. The grunts on the screen are as green as Frankenstein, like newly minted monsters standing by to be chased by a mob. They drag a limp enemy soldier out of a tunnel. The enemy soldier is a skinny teenaged boy, greased, zapped, blown away and wasted. The body looks like a muddy sack full of butchered meat. The voice-over says, "Viet Nam violence freaks kill and kill without a twinge of guilt. . . ."

Television blood is an attractive shade of red, bright, not dark. And I think:
If bloodfrom that dead boy seeped down through the tubes and wires and transistors, and dripped out from the bottom of the TV screen and onto the floor, would that blood glow with an electric light as though alive? And would it still be too red? And would anybody be able to see it but me?

Sissie listens to the announcer's voice-over. As the scene cuts abruptly from body bags to a beer commercial, Sissie asks, "James, what is napalm?"

Obrey interrupts. He says, "You know any of them Army boys?"

Sissie shoos a fly off of the fried chicken.

I say, "No. I wasn't in the Army."

Obrey takes a big bite of hominy grits. "Can't understand you, boy. If you wasn't smart enough to get into a college of some kind, I bet you could have got out of going some other way." He picks up his coffee cup, pours coffee into the saucer, blows on the coffee to cool it, then slurps the coffee from the saucer. "Seems to me," Obrey says, "you got a little suckered in." He smiles, very friendly. "No offense."

I eat black-eyed peas. I eat black-eyed peas with revolutionary enthusiasm, my eyes on my plate. The Woodcutter would be proud of me.

Obrey is encouraged by my silence. He says, "Your mama and me done talked it all out. The deal is, our minds are set that the Christian thing to do is that you're sure enough welcome to stay on here for a week or two--three if you need it--give you time to sign on for a job down at the cotton mill and find a place of your own in town."

I look across the table at my mother. "Ma?"

My mother looks away, twists her hands into her apron. "Obrey's the man of the house now, James. Times have been hard for us, what with your daddy passing on and all. It's been such a sorry time for us. The government stopped paying us for not growing peanuts. All we got left is a piece of your daddy's insurance money. Least till Obrey can find a buyer for the land. We're bad off."

"Grow up, boy," says Obrey. "You been living high on the hog in the service, eating on our tax money, but now your free ride is over. Time you learned to stand on your own two feet and be a man."

Ma looks up. "But we all proud of you for your being a hero in the Army."

"I'm not a hero, Ma. The war is wrong." And then in terms she can understand: "It's a sin, Ma. The war in Viet Nam is a mortal sin."

My mother looks at me as though I'd just slapped her face.

Then my mother says, "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that. I only know what President Nixon says on the television. And I guess he must know what he's doing, or he wouldn't be President."

I say, "That idiot Nixon doesn't know a damned thing about Viet Nam."

Ma purses her lips. "Well, he knows a little bit more about it than you do, I guess."

I say, "Daddy would believe me. He'd know I don't lie."

My mother says, "Oh, I know you don't lie, James. But maybe you just a little mixed up, that's all. You home now. Time to forget what happened overseas. Just pretend it never happened. Put it out of your mind."

Old Ma says, "Hush up, now, Pearleen. Don't fuss at James. Let him alone. He's been gone a month of Sundays and he just got home and already you're fussing at him."

Obrey says, "The smarter boys got out of it." He sops up bean juice with a wedge of cornbread. He bites through the crunchy brown crust and into the soft yellow bread inside. He says , "You should have got out of it."

I lean across the table and I take a good grip on Obrey's throat. I get up into his face. I say, "You shut your mouth, you ridiculous feeb, or I will use your nose as pivot point for an amtrack movement."

Obrey says, "You're cruising for a bruising, boy." He draws a fist back for a punch.

Sissie jumps up from the table and grabs Obrey's cocked arm. "Stop! Don't you hurt James!"

Obrey slaps Sissie. Hard.

Sissie steps back, stunned, but not really hurt.

I look at my mother.

My mother says, "Obrey is your father now, James. He has every right to punish Cecilia."

Obrey says, "You listen to your mother, boy. You getting too big for your breeches. Maybe you'd like a sample of the back of my hand. That'll take the starch out of you!"

I say to Sissie, "You okay, Stringbean?"

Sissie nods, wipes tears from her eyes. On her pale cheek, distinctly outlined, is the red mark of Obrey's hand.

I say to Obrey, "If you ever touch my sister again, I'll kill you."

Obrey pulls away, says to my mother, "You see that, Pearleen? I told you when he come back he'd be like a rabid dog."

My mother says, getting up from the table, "It's the Lord's truth."

I'm thinking that I should punch Obrey's fucking heart out. Instead, I bend down and pick up the Tokarev pistol in my cowboy hat. I chamber a round. I say to Obrey, "Take this pistol. Take the damned gun or I'll shoot your dick off."

Obrey is too scared to move.

I say, "Take the pistol, butt-hole. Do it now!"

Obrey, too scared to not move, takes the pistol from my hand.

I say, "Now hold it up to your head."

My mother starts to say something, but I say, "Shut up, Ma. Just shut the fuck up." To Obrey, I say, "Put the pistol up to your head or I'll shove it up your ass!" I step closer to Obrey, threatening him physically.

Trembling, Obrey lifts the pistol up to his head.

"Okay," I say, "now put your finger on the trigger."

Obrey hesitates.

I say, starting to lose control, "Just what is your major malfunction, numbnuts?" Getting up into Obrey's face, I scream, "DO IT! DO IT NOW!"

Obrey does it.

Cautiously, Obrey puts his finger on the trigger. He's sweating like a pig now. The gun barrel has indented a red "O" into his temple.

I say, "Are you scared? Good. Now, being in Viet Nam is different in three ways. First, the amount of time you're under the gun is not for ten or twelve seconds, but for a year.

"Second, it's not your finger on the trigger. No, the finger on the trigger belongs to a guy who lives in stinking holes in the ground. This guy craps shrapnel and eats napalm for breakfast. You're an invader standing on his ancestral land. You've killed his farm animals and some of his relatives. You've burned down the house his grandfather built with his own hands. You've tortured his brother soldiers to death as a form of recreation. You've poisoned his crops. The Agent Orange in his food and water has caused his wife to give birth to monsters. And, when he pulls down on you, when he targets you, you have just asked his baby sister if she wants to fuck. . . ."

Obrey's eyes are blinking uncontrollably. He's drooling. Suddenly I realize that Obrey has shit in his pants. He stinks with the smell of it, the smell of fear.

My mother, Old Ma, and Sissie are all crying.

I say, "Give me that pistol, you pathetic substandard non-hacker."

Obrey is frozen. I step forward and pull the gun from his hand by force.

I say, "The third thing that is different is that in Viet Nam the weapons are not on safety and are locked and cocked." I take the pistol off safety and cock it.

Obrey says, tears streaming down his cheeks, "How can you be so violent?"

I say, "That was not violence, peanut balls, that was only real life.
This
is violence."

I pull the trigger of the Tokarev and
bam
-- I fire a bullet into the kitchen floor.

Everybody jumps, stunned. The women abruptly stop crying.

My mother says, wiping her tears, "I can't believe your language. I just can't believe it."

I say, "I shoot a gun in the kitchen and you're worried about my
language
?" I laugh. "That's just the way people talk, Ma, when they're not on television."

My mother says, "Decent people don't use them vile words.

I say, dropping the Tokarev into my Stetson, "They don't talk that way in Heaven, Ma, but they talk that way down here."

My mother says, "Good Lord, I can't believe that. Don't tell me about it."

Obrey says, backing away from me, "You a killer now, boy. You got blood on your hands. Your kind don't fit in. You don't belong here no more. You ain't fit to live with decent people."